“It’s always a fight,” says Overlander. “Duke hates to be made up. Why, he even claims I madehis hair thin out by massaging his head too often. Won’t wear his hairpiece like he should.”

At any rate, with Oriental eye make-up in place and a half-moon moustache carefully glued tohis upper lip, Wayne then rode 18 miles out into the desert. En route, he repeated to himself thelines he had memorized the previous evening. Wayne is a fast memorizer—provided that his dialogueis straightforward. “I can’t stand those fancied-up lines with adjectives modifying danglingparticiples,” he says.

On location—a vast stretch of sandy red wasteland, dotted with authentic Mongol huts (madeout of burlap and blankets by studio experts) and teeming with Mongols and Tartars (actuallyIndians from a nearby reservation) horses, wranglers, stuntmen, and crew members—Wayne was apopular figure. He answered each “Good morning” with a broad Irish “It is that, indeed!” He’d tradefriendly punches with a couple of wranglers, talk quietly to the horse he would ride that day,struggle into his costume, and by 8 o’clock be ready for a cup of coffee from the coffee wagon.

Shooting began at 9. Thereafter, Wayne’s $1,923 working day usually included:

1) Wearing boots, fur-banded helmet and heavy wool costume for hours in temperatures thatsoared to 130 degrees. (The cameras were draped with wet towels to keep the film from melting.)

2) Risking his neck several times, on horseback and off, in genuinely dangerous scenes. (Theaction called for him to plunder a village, capture Tartar princess Susan Hayward, fight off Tartarhordes. “this is a regular Chinese Western,” he commented one day after a stampede scene. “I getthem all.”)

3) A quick lunch in a trailer-dressing room. (Menu: cottage cheese, fruit, iced tea—andoccasionally, as a special treat, a can of tomatoes.)

4) Standing for hours in the blazing sun, repeating one scene over and over as many as 15times until director Dick Powell and the cameraman were satisfied.

“It’s always a fight,” says Overlander. “Duke hates to be made up. Why, he even claims I madehis hair thin out by massaging his head too often. Won’t wear his hairpiece like he should.”

At any rate, with Oriental eye make-up in place and a half-moon moustache carefully glued tohis upper lip, Wayne then rode 18 miles out into the desert. En route, he repeated to himself thelines he had memorized the previous evening. Wayne is a fast memorizer—provided that his dialogueis straightforward. “I can’t stand those fancied-up lines with adjectives modifying danglingparticiples,” he says.

On location—a vast stretch of sandy red wasteland, dotted with authentic Mongol huts (madeout of burlap and blankets by studio experts) and teeming with Mongols and Tartars (actuallyIndians from a nearby reservation) horses, wranglers, stuntmen, and crew members—Wayne was apopular figure. He answered each “Good morning” with a broad Irish “It is that, indeed!” He’d tradefriendly punches with a couple of wranglers, talk quietly to the horse he would ride that day,struggle into his costume, and by 8 o’clock be ready for a cup of coffee from the coffee wagon.

Shooting began at 9. Thereafter, Wayne’s $1,923 working day usually included:

1) Wearing boots, fur-banded helmet and heavy wool costume for hours in temperatures thatsoared to 130 degrees. (The cameras were draped with wet towels to keep the film from melting.)

2) Risking his neck several times, on horseback and off, in genuinely dangerous scenes. (Theaction called for him to plunder a village, capture Tartar princess Susan Hayward, fight off Tartarhordes. “this is a regular Chinese Western,” he commented one day after a stampede scene. “I getthem all.”)

3) A quick lunch in a trailer-dressing room. (Menu: cottage cheese, fruit, iced tea—andoccasionally, as a special treat, a can of tomatoes.)

4) Standing for hours in the blazing sun, repeating one scene over and over as many as 15times until director Dick Powell and the cameraman were satisfied.